Local scholars react to boycott of Israeli schools

A previously little-known academic group has made waves with a stance against the Israeli government that's drawn sharp rebukes and allegations of anti-Semitism from some local scholars.

In a show of solidarity with Palestinian students and educators, the American Studies Association voted at the end of last year to boycott Israeli academic institutions -- a move that's since been condemned by a handful of Massachusetts universities and colleges, including Harvard, Tufts, Brandeis, Clark, Amherst and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Until a few weeks ago, nobody had even heard of this organization, and now it's in all the headlines," said Michael Hoberman, an associate professor of English at Fitchburg State University and a former member of the American Studies Association. "It looks as though it's losing a huge amount of credibility through this boycott."

The boycott is an academic component of a broader boycott, divestment and sanctions movement intended to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land and provide equal rights for its Arab-Palestinian citizens.

Of the 1,252 ASA members who voted on the organization's boycott resolution, 66 percent supported it, with 30 percent against and 3 percent abstaining.

Since that vote, the group has faced a backlash, including what ASA President Curtis Marez described in a letter to members as "a small number of threatening emails and phone calls.

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Opponents question, why start with Israel?

"To be the first country on the agenda reeks of anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic overtones," said Michael Goldman, a Democratic political consultant who also teaches at Suffolk University, Salem State University and Northeastern University. "And they can claim that's not what this is about, but if it wasn't, why didn't they start in an African country where the Hutus and the Tutsis can't go to the same school? Or why not start in China, where the Tibetans have been virtually annihilated?"

Goldman, who writes a weekly column in the Sunday Sun, said Israel, like all nations, is far from totally equal, but goes further than its Middle Eastern neighbors in promoting academic equality by allowing Jews, Muslims and Christians to teach in its universities.

"If (the ASA) used their status as academicians to point out the places where every voice isn't heard, they would have been honored rather than basically isolated and humiliated," Goldman said. "This was always about Israel."

College leaders weigh in

Criticisms of the boycott range from the claims of deliberate or de facto anti-Semitism to accusations of hypocrisy.

Several Massachusetts university officials, including the leaders of Boston University, Tufts University, Smith College, MIT and Amherst College, said the measure taken on behalf of academic freedom unfairly restricts the rights of scholars in Israel and those who would work with them.

"It is ill-advised to make academic institutions the instrument with which to promote a political agenda by attempting to isolate students and scholars," Boston University President Robert Brown said in a statement.

In an informational sheet, the ASA told its members the boycott is warranted because Israeli universities are closely connected to the military establishment there and many provide both means and ideological justification for the occupation of Palestinian territories.

Seventy members of the ASA, including Fitchburg State American literature professor Benjamin Railton, signed onto a letter expressing opposition to the boycott, calling it "a troubling effort of a vocal minority" within the group.

The letter argues the measure discriminates against one country, and sets a dangerous precedent in doing so.

Railton, a past president of the ASA's regional chapter, the New England American Studies Association, said he is "equally opposed to all of the backlash against the ASA," particularly what he sees as anti-academic and anti-intellectual efforts.

As an example, he pointed to a bill currently before the New York Senate that would cut off state funding to schools belonging to the ASA or supporting the boycott.

"To my mind, those efforts suffer from the same problems as the ASA boycott, and if anything have more potential to impact their targets than does the boycott," Railton wrote in an email.

"So I'm still entirely opposed to the boycott, but likewise to all those kinds of attacks on the ASA."

The heads of UMass Dartmouth and UMass Amherst have issued statements calling out the ASA for its boycott, but the University of Massachusetts system and its Lowell, Worcester and Boston campuses have stayed silent.

UMass Boston Associate Professor of American Studies Jeffrey Melnick said he voted in favor of the boycott because he wants to make sure his colleagues all over the world have the same opportunities he does.

"For me, it really did boil down to, one of the things I value most in my professional life is academic freedom," he said. "And that does not exist in Israel and Palestine."

He said he's troubled by "how many powerful people in American universities have made this very familiar mistake" of branding as anti-Semitic positions taken against Israeli policies.

"For me as an American Jew, that's a crushing confusion," Melnick said. "It's incredibly important to be able to criticize Israel and have that not be taken as anti-Semitism. Israel is a Jewish state, but it does not speak for all Jews."

He added that the those who support the boycott need to do a "better job of explaining in a clear, loud way" the differences between their views and anti-Semitic ones.

Hoberman, of Fitchburg State, said he recognizes there's room to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. The concern, to him, is that the boycott seems to unfairly single out Israel when other countries, including America, "commit much deeper offenses."

"We too displaced an enormous amount of people who were here before, and you don't hear American people talking about leaving America and giving it back to native people," Hoberman said.

He recently returned from a family vacation to Israel.

"Having the experience of being there, talking with Israelis and interacting with Arabs as well, I really felt the sense that a boycott like this oversimplifies, and points the finger unfairly at a society that is doing its best in a lot of ways to maintain democracy and freedom of expression," Hoberman said.

To read what ASA members say about the boycott, go to the group's website at: www.theasa.net.

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